Rockford on pace to demolish 100 or more shabby homes in 2016

Wednesday

ROCKFORD — City officials say they're on pace to demolish 100 vacant, shabby homes this year, and the plan is to raze a similar number of dilapidated houses in 2017.

Aldermen last year approved a list of 100 homes to demolish in an effort to rid neighborhoods of blight. This is the fifth year the city has hired contractors to tear down homes that are empty, damaged in violation of building codes or considered dangerous.

The city razed 266 homes from 2012 through 2015. An additional 62 homes have been razed this year. Approximately 60 more are in various stages of demolition, which means it's possible that the city could surpass its goal to raze 100 blighted homes by year's end, said Todd Cagnoni, the city's director of economic and community development.

Georgie James has been waiting six years for the vacant condemned home next to hers to come back to life. It's not likely to happen. A bright red "X" plastered on the front of the Foster Avenue house warns firefighters that the structural integrity of the house may be weak. Police recently used the empty house for a SWAT team training exercise.

“I'm glad they're taking it down,” she said. “A vacant house like that is kind of scary.”

This year, the city allocated roughly $850,000 to raze dilapidated homes. The city has spent an average of $8,500 to remove each of the 62 homes demolished so far in 2016.

Separately, the city partnered with Rockford Corridor Improvement, a nonprofit affiliated with William Charles Construction Co., and secured a $1.2 million grant from the Illinois Housing Development Authority to raze 35 homes, and that work is about to begin, Cagnoni said. Unlike the city's other demolition efforts, the IHDA grant will allow Rockford to buy the dilapidated homes, pay to maintain the vacant lots after the homes are razed and work with Rockford Corridor Improvement to find new owners for the properties.

More than 2,000 homes, mostly in the city's older neighborhoods, need significant repairs or to be demolished. A city-commissioned report released last week identified the worst among them: homes that have no occupant, according to the U.S. Postal Service; structures where city water service has been shut off for six months or more; properties with delinquent 2015 property taxes; and parcels with one or more open code violations.

The study, authored by the Center for Community Progress, based in Washington, D.C., found that approximately 200 properties in Rockford met all of the criteria, and they're concentrated in the city's southwest, southeast and northwest quadrants.

The report recommends multiple strategies for the city to employ to clean up blighted homes, such as forging stronger ties with neighborhood groups and working more closely with the Winnebago County Treasurer's office to identify delinquent tax properties.

Homes designated for demolition are ranked by city staff on condition, code violations and other criteria. The city's list is fluid. A low-ranked home could become an immediate demolition priority if it was damaged by fire or it can be taken off the list if an owner decides to make it inhabitable.

Potential demolitions are then scored on a 100-point scale that takes into account:

— Whether homes are a public nuisance (near schools and school bus stops, near high-density housing, whether they're boarded up, frequented by vagrants, number of police calls).

— Safety matters such as structural failure, environmental hazards, locked or unlocked and evidence of squatters.

— Nearby public works projects, focus areas where corridors are being redeveloped or in blighted areas where tax subsidies are available for redevelopment.

— Demographics and how long the building is vacant. The city will aim to raze another 100 homes next year, Cagnoni said. Aldermen approved a resolution Tuesday that allows the city to apply for a $250,000 IDHA grant that, if successful, would pay for the demolition of approximately 30 homes in 2017.

“Beyond that, I can't fully predict where our budget discussions for 2017 will go, but the City Council has certainly set a priority with respect to blight reduction in city neighborhoods,” Cagnoni said.

Isaac Guerrero: 815-987-1361; iguerrero@rrstar.com; @isaac_rrs

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